Saturday, October 20, 2012

In June 1981, the mother of a Fairbanks Cub Scout complained that a den leader named Kenneth A. Burns was sleeping nude with boys and showing them pornographic material.

The head of the Fairbanks-based Midnight Sun Council of the Boy Scouts of America wrote to the national office about the complaint. He also informed officials that the U.S. Air Force was investigating Burns, who at the time was a sergeant at Eielson Air Force Base.

"I will agree that sleeping nude and showing the boys pornographic books indicated very poor judgement when dealing with cub scouts," replied Boy Scouts of America executive Paul Ernst in July of that year. "I do not know, however, that this is a serious enough offense to refuse registration anywhere he might try to register unless there are more instances."

Burns is one of seven Alaska men identified in 1,400 pages of previously secret files released Thursday by an Oregon law firm involved in a lawsuit against the Boy Scouts of America.

The documents tell a story of men barred by the Boy Scouts national organization after they had already drawn police scrutiny or criminal charges for sexually abusing children in Alaska.

The Alaska files released are all from the 1960s and 1980s.

Officials with the Boy Scouts council in Alaska did not respond to a request for comment Thursday.

A Los Angeles Times database that includes other sources of the Boy Scouts records lists more than a dozen additional files from Alaska but they do not include names or details of the allegations. Some of the most recent cases from Alaska are from 2003 and 2004.

In Burns' case, it appears that it took a court-martial conviction, a letter from an Air Force judge, a warning that Burns had tried to join another Alaska troop and nearly a year to convince national Boy Scouts officials to add his name to a secret "undesirable list."

"We appreciate the work you have done in getting this information for us," Ernst wrote to John P. McKean, then head of the Midnight Sun Council, in March 1982. That was more than nine months after the initial complaint. "This will strengthen our case in being able to refuse future registration attempts."

Burns didn't stop molesting children.

In the 1990s, he was charged with abusing boys at his Muldoon mobile home, which police said he stocked with toys. At the time, police said he might have had more than 100 victims.

He was eventually convicted of child sex abuse charges.

Now what some people in the lower forty eight may not realize is that Alaska has long been a place where the dregs of society were sent for various reasons, or where they came of their own volition to escape prosecution or persecution for their deviant lifestyles. We have had more than our fair share of draft dodgers, convicted criminals, pimps, soldiers gone AWOL, gang bangers on the lam, and even low ranking members of the Mafia during the oil boom years.

In short it is where numerous criminals came to make their homes far from the restrictive "civilization" of the rest of America, and where even the Catholic church dumped their own child molesters for decades.

I am not at all surprised to learn that the Boy Scouts covered for this activity up here as well as in the rest of the country, and would be even less surprised to learn that the Boy Scout leaders might even have suggested that these individuals move north once they were discovered in other states, since they still undoubtedly see Alaska as the last frontier where these assholes can simply disappear into the wilderness.

You know, much like what the Catholic church has done with THEIR undesirables over the years.

P.S. Of course while the Boy Scouts might be willing to cover for those pedophiles, they make damn sure to keep the REAL unsavory element out. You know, the atheists.

...I'm sorry. I've brought the wrong notes with me this evening. I've borrowed my argument from the wrong century. It turns out what I've been reading to you this whole time are direct quotes from White preachers from the 1950's and the 1960's all in support of racial segregation. All I have done is simply take out the words “racial integration” and substituted it with the phrase “gay rights”.

I guess the arguments I've been hearing around Springfield lately sound so similar to these that I got them confused.

...The religious right, Dominionists, and theocracy proponents pose a clear and present danger to all Americans regardless of their religious persuasion. There are historical instances of entire populations being caught up in religious-like frenzy and sweeping away all those who stand opposed, and it is certain that in pre-Nazi Germany, good German people had no more reason to assist in the slaughter of six million Jews than they would exterminate their own children, but when incited to action borne of fear-mongering and state-sponsored hate, there are no groups that can remain safe. America is nearing that point, and Republicans have fallen in line with extremist Christian fanatics whose sole intent is replacing the Constitution with the Christian bible, and America’s worst nightmare is a Romney presidency bolstered by conservative Christians in Congress and a bible-based Supreme Court that outlaws homosexuality, contraception, abortion, and gives full Constitutional rights to a single-celled organism. America does change slowly, but a Republican victory in November will bring a rapid change taking America into Dark Ages when there was no Constitution, no equal rights, and the bible’s Old Testament was the law of the land.

Not just Atheists - they have an active, ongoing campaign against Gays. But they do love their pedophiles and both the Mormon Church & Catholic Church are complicit in covering up in the BSA, just as they are with the pedophiles within their own church officials.

To say this is unpleasant reading is an understatement, however, I imagine many law enforcement and children defense organizations will be analyzing them. They shed great light on the profile of a predator.

I'm only on the third file...and it's of a man who was also a 4th grade teacher. http://3a404e1aa1cba449207f-dfa2a838ce6e52a29a34ac27f30624de.r78.cf2.rackcdn.com/0891.pdf

If people think this is a problem only happening in religious or faith-based organizations, they need to understand the predators are hunting for children everywhere children are most likely to be.

I'm sickened that the leader felt one incident wasn't enough "proof", and let this scum stay. And that there's a statute of limitations and this perversion file was kept under cover until after the statute ran out. We didn't learn from Adam Walsh, Eton Patz, The Clergy Abuse in the Roman Catholic Church, and the Church's complicity in not reporting them, Jerry Sandusky and the Second Mile, Joe Paterno and the big wigs at Penn State, and on and on and on.

I know it can happen anywhere, anytime without a Religion, School, nor Charitable Cause, but why do these organizations ALWAYS cover for the perverts? Both are equally to blame, but to me, the cover up deserves MORE prosecution because their silence puts more innocent lives at risk.

I'm glad my son wouldn't qualify for the boy scouts (the secular/atheist exception), but it doesn't make me feel better for those who did and met this fate. I can't imagine the sense of guilt and betrayal the parents feel for trusting their children to the care of these "pillars of society", and the "law" that remains to help enable them.

What I can't fathom is why would this organization make such an effort to keep these men on as den leaders or in any other capacity? Once they had a complaint about inappropriate behavior, sexual or otherwise, what was the upside of allowing them to continue? I mean, seriously, sleeping nude and showing pornography to CUB SCOUTS? Why was ANY inappropriate behavior tolerated?

Why would their first and ONLY instinct and action not be "You are immediately relieved of your Scout duties and are no longer affiliated in any capacity with this organization." It is difficult for me to believe there has ever been a shortage of volunteers, especially among the many fathers (or uncles, grandfathers, big brothers, etc.) of cub and boy scouts. Why the reluctance to get rid of obvious weirdos?

Why would an organization supposedly devoted to the development of boys into honorable adult men (and especially one that promotes a squeaky clean, scrupulous lifestyle) risk further harm (or more serious harm) to the boys in their care, not to mention the risk of very devastating PR/press coverage if something more serious did happen to a child due to their inaction?

Even worse, apparently when there were reports of full-blown molestation and rape, they never called the police and just covered it up, even if the perp WAS dismissed from the organization. They just compiled these "perversion files." So much for teaching a sense of responsibility and good judgment by doing the complete opposite.

Well, if they were trying to avoid bad publicity (or, just as likely, lawsuits), it eventually blew up in their faces. The people responsible for these "policies" for the past 50-60 years (and no doubt they ignored sex abuse complaints for much longer) have to have been the most incompetent (as well as depraved) idiots imaginable.

They're nothing but a religious indoctrination and hate organization anyway. I hope they're sued out of existence.

We all know that the weak are weak because of moral failings, and the powerful are powerful because of moral superiority. But the way things are going now, the powerful are losing their authority, so some big immoral babies can have their way, and do as they please. Animal rights activists want to tell people how to treat their pets. Social workers are putting limits on Childrearing. Everything is going downhill for the powerful.

About Me

This blog is dedicated to finding the truth, exposing the lies, and holding our politicians and leaders accountable when they fall far short of the promises that they have made to both my fellow Alaskans and the American people.